Names and faces

There’s new, never-before-heard music coming from Johnny Cash. Cash’s estate is releasing Out Among the Stars, an album he recorded with Billy Sherrill in the early 1980s that was never released by Columbia Records, then disappeared when the company dropped Cash in 1986. Turns out Cash and his wife, June Carter Cash, stashed the tapes - along with just about everything else that came into their possession. “They never threw anything away,” said their son, John Carter Cash. “They kept everything in their lives. They had an archive that had everything in it from the original audiotapes from The Johnny Cash Show to random things like a camel saddle, a gift from the prince of Saudi Arabia.” Indeed, they stored away so much that the younger Cash and archivists at Legacy Recordings didn’t find the material until last year, long after the family began issuing archival music by Cash. Out Among the Stars will be out March 25, and continues an intense period of interest in the singer, who helped shape modern country and rock ‘n’ roll music and became an American pop cultural figure before his death 10 years ago at age 71. Multiple music, book and restoration projects have been started in the past 18 months to mark what would have been the singer’s 80th birthday and the 10th anniversary of his death.

Here’s something to wag a tongue at: MTV says Miley Cyrus is the best artist of the year. The former child star twerked her way to the top. Her eye-popping duet with Robin Thicke on the MTV Video Music Awards was one of the year’s most talked about cultural events. MTV said Monday the VMA duet on “We Can’t Stop” and “Blurred Lines” was the year’s most watched video on its websites. Similarly, the MTV artist site devoted to Cyrus had more visits than any other artist’s. Besides “We Can’t Stop,” the song “Wrecking Ball” and album Bangerz were big hits for Cyrus, who also had notable appearances on Saturday Night Live and MTV’s European music awards show. MTV executives pick their top artist. One Direction won last year, and Katy Perry won the year before. This year, Cyrus was an easy choice, said Amy Doyle, head of MTV’s music and talent programming strategy. “She dominated the music charts and critics’ best-of lists while creating some of the year’s most memorable moments,” Doyle said.